Tuesday, December 26, 2006

I am still busy giving lectures on ergonomics to the candidates of Certificate in safety inspector and Certificate in safety and heath officer at PPKS Kuching. Now PPKS is known as ICATS.The two groups were combined in one class, a bit crowded though.I have one more lecture on occupational health module to be given to the candidates of Certificate in safety inspector, probably in coming January.Tomorrow is my third day lecture on Ergonomics to this combined class. I will deliver lectures on Manual handling Hazards, DOSH’s Gudeline on Standing & Seating at work and Office Ergonomics. My next two lectures on Developing Ergonomics Program and Participatory ergonomics will also be held in January 2007.So I have no time to continue the topic on risk management on my blog.Please be patient and stay tune.With kind regards,Dr Aini Bin Hj Murni, MD PGDOHhttp://cendekiaohs.blogspot.com

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Welcome back!Hazard by itself cannot produce harm or danger unless we are EXPOSED to the hazard. EXPOSURE is the main mechanism or pathway that release the dangers from hazard source.HAZARD SOURCE---> EXPOSURE----->CONSEQUENCE.How much is your exposure to hazard is the main question? What are the chain of factors in this exposure? Do you have control measure to prevent the transmission of consequence of hazard from occur?For example:You are doing soldering process in your work. This process involves the usage of lead which produces fume. Lead fumes at certain level in the air can enter your body through inhalation. The effect of excess plumbum in your body are anaemia, kidney impairment & neuropathy.So you are exposed to LEAD FUMES which will adversely affect your health in the long run. How much is your exposure? Is the level of the fume in the air exceeding the permissible exposure level (PEL) as determined by law. What are the factors that are aggravating your exposure? Do you have knowledge of health effect of lead? Are you following standard operation procedure? What is your perception about health effect of lead? Do you value your health? Are there any control measures in your work to minimise the exposure of lead fume? Is there local exhaust ventilation available to suck out the fume? Do you wear appropriate mask? Do you wear appropriate glove?The answer to these questions will determine how much exposure will you get from the hazard of lead fume. If you dont care about your health and safety, you will ignore all the above measures and factors. You will create what is called UNSAFE ACT or practice. You will also create UNSAFE CONDITION. Due to nothing happen yet, it will reinforce your behavior on this practice. Unless the safety culture in your organisation exist, you will continue with this bad safety and health practice at workplace without guidance or care from the people at your workplace. It is a matter of time when all the factors combined and aggravating each other, then the consequence occur - IMMEDIATE or DELAY. The chance or probability for you to suffer the consequence either affecting your safety or health is called RISK.So when we deal with HAZARD, we should ask what is THE RISK of getting the consequence of the hazard ?Your RISK is determined by how much is your EXPOSURE. The level of your exposure is depending on all the factors we asked earlier.To determine the level of your exposure, we need to do HEALTHRISK ASSESSMENT and RISK RATING.We will discuss this topic in next posting.

I am a bit busy lately. I am involved in OSH training for the course of certificate in Safety Inspector organised by Sarawak Skill Development Centre or well known as PPKS. I am giving lecture for Occupational Health Module and Industrial ergonomics Module.

Friday, October 13, 2006

It is important to have a knowledge on Hazards if you really want to manage Safety and Health at workplace effectively.What is Hazard?The word Hazard is originated from Arabic -AZZAHR, means chance, luck.Hazard is any thing that has inherent potential to cause HARM or DANGER to human’s health and safety, property and environment.Generally, we can classified Hazard into Safety Hazard and Health Hazard. Safety Hazard is a condition where harm to workers is immediate or of violent in nature which may result in injury,for instance Work at Height -if you fell down, it will result in acute injury or fatality. On other hand, Health hazard is a condition that can cause disease or illness, normally it take a period of time to develop. For example, if you are exposed to Benzene (which is carcinogenic chemical:classified as Class A carcinogenic by the Environmental Protection Agency), you may have Cancer of white blood cell (Leukemia) in many years time. However, health hazard also can ended up in acute consequence, for example in Acute Cyanide Poisoning.How many Type of Hazards?The type of Hazards are :Health hazards:1. Biological agent : Virus, Bacteria,Fungus2. Chemical agent: Organic solvents, Heavy metal such as Plumbum(Lead),Nickel etc3. Ergonomics : Manual handling, Computer work etc4. Physical Agent: Radiation, Noise, Vibration etc5. Psychosocial : Stress, shift work*mnemonic: BioChemist Examines Plumbum PoiSoningSafety Hazards:1. Mechanical/machinery : cuts, entanglement2. Height/Gravity3. Electrical4. Fire/Explosion5. Violence6. Confine Space

Thursday, October 12, 2006

HAZE is affecting our country again. Almost every year we confront with HAZE - a consequence of human activity of extreme burning of forest and uncontrolled open burning. Science and technology still unable to prevent it from occur and recur. It signify the limitation of the science and technology, the most we can do is to emulate the natural process - producing artificial rain.What is HAZE? How it affects our health and safety?It is composed of solid or particulate matter, gases and liquid droplets which are collectively only visible to the naked eye. Individually it is invisible.With increase in humidity, these particles grow in size making the HAZE become more dense and affecting the distance visibility of the surrounding.This may cause accident between land and river or sea transport.The HAZE usually originated from a source of open burning. In our case, the open burning activity in Indonesia is the main culprit. Inter-monsoon wind brought the components of haze from these sources to our places.Gas components of the haze - Sulphur dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide - when in contact with the mucus membranes of our upper respiratory tract or conjunctiva will produce weak acid in the form of sulphic and nitric acid. These two acid will cause local irritation effect result in conjunctivitis and upper respiratory tract inflammation.So, now this explained the rising numbers of these two cases during HAZE throughout our country.Surprisingly, cases of ASTHMA are also increasing according to the press statement from Ministry of Health. Studies on Haze by Dr JeyaIndran, our local expert in Respiratory Medicine, in 1991 when our country was affected by HAZE for 160 days, showed significant rise in PM10 but no concomitant rise in cases of acute asthma. His study on HAZE in 1997 also revealed no acute episodes significant rise of asthma despite of increased in API reading. So the report of increasing in Asthma cases during current HAZE should be analysed properly inorder to show its significant.What should we do? When API reading more that 200,it indicates a very unhealthy condition because of the risk of normal individual suffering the ill effects of HAZE i.e. Upper respiratory tract infections and conjunctivitis - the following advice should be followed:1. Stay indoors especially to HIGH RISK people - Elderly, Children and those who suffers from Heart and Lung diseases.2. Drink a lot of water (For muslim, fasting month prevents this)3. Wash your face frequently4. If you need to be outdoor especially for outdoor workers, you need to wear an appropriate MASK equivalent to 3M 8710 model (Not the one that was distributed free at the moment). Ordinary mask cannot prevent you from inhaling the components of HAZE, it only gives a false sense of security.In Kuching, it was raining for the past 3 days, although it reduced the API reading but the haze is still there.

Monday, October 02, 2006

I asked my wife who is currently doing her part-time BEd (TESL) did a survey on awareness and knowledge on OSHA 1994 amongst her course-mates. We used questionnaires developed by UKM's research team headed by Prof. Dr. KG Rampal, a well knownMalaysian Professor of Occupational Medicine.The following are our findings:Only 58.3% of respondents had heard or knew about OSHA 1994 as compared to Prof. Rampal's findings -60.5% of 2577 respondents.87.5% of our respondents mistaken OSHA 1994 with SOCSO Act 1969, while 87.4% of them said OSHA 1994 was enforced by Ministry of Health, Malaysia. 87% of our respondents knew that employers could be charged in court but only 48.5% of them knew that they too could be charged in court for not complying with the act. Our findings is almost similar to Prof.Rampal's findings. Although our sample is only 24 but in view of their level of education is STPM and above and majority of them are working with public and private sectors, it is quiet alarming to know the findings.After OSHA 1994 already enacted for more than 10 years, it is quiet surprising that the target population of workforce are still not heard or knew about OSHA 1994. As OSH Professional we are responsible to disseminate the awareness and knowledge of Safety and Health and its law to the workforce.Let us increase our effort......How do we expect the improvement of the level of Safety and Health at workplace, if the worker never heard about the law?

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

CMS Cement of Sarawak, received their GOLD Award from MSOSH recently. This award was given due to their commitment in OSH in their organisation. I hope more companies from Sarawak will receive this award in future.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Today, DOSH Sarawak organised half-day Seminar on Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Code of Practice. More than 100 participants from both government agency and private sector attended the seminar. The seminar was officiated by Director of DOSH Sarawak, Mr. Hj. Kormain Mohd Noor. 3 papers were peresented by three speakers respectively. Paper 1 touched on the content of the Code of Practice. Paper 2 discussed the biological hazards in Indoor Air pollution and the Paper 3, explained the steps of doing the assessment of IAQ. The seminar was jointly organised by Malaysian Industrial Hygienist Association (MIHA) and National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Malaysia.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

On 8th August 2006, NIOSH MALAYSIA organised a roadshow seminar on ERGONOMICS at Merdeka Palace Hotel, Kuching entitled : HOW ERGONOMICS CONTRIBUTES TO OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH, QUALITY AND PRODUCTIVITY AT WORK.I was invited to present one topic on Managing Musculoskeletal Injuries due to unergonomics task and work condition.About 80 participants from government agencies and private company attended the seminar.

Friday, July 28, 2006

What is the economic value of Occupational Health Services? To answer this question, we have to do Cost benafit analysis (CBA) as well as Cost Effective analysis (CEA). However, we will address CBA and CEA in future topic.In one article titled: " Demonstrating the economic value of occupational health services: P. Miller et al ;published in Journal of Occupational Medicine Vol.52 No. 8 pp 477 -483,2002:-According to COST model evaluation method, the expected benefits of OH services are:1. Maximise health and morale of employees2. Maximise performance and increase productivity3. Minimise medico-legal costs4. Enhance workplace safety5. Reduce sickness absence.So, inorder to evaluate any OH services, you have to weigh it on the above benefits.Another way to see the economic value of OH services is by using CONTINGENT VALUATION method, which put OHS as a form of insurance policy, which individual business unit managers chose to purchase at different levels of cover. In this concept, the insured must provide what is called Willingness To Purchase (WTP) the OHS and Willingness to Accept (WTA) the Risk of ignoring and neglecting OHS.So, let us check whether our company is willing to invest in OHS in order to have Healthy Workforce and safe workplace.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

There is still confusion amongst some industrial management regarding the difference in the provision of industrial clinic and comprehensive OH services. Some managements thought both are the same. OH Services are preventive health based services with the following main functions:

Management of workplace occupational risks

Management of workers health

Participating in emergency response and disaster management

PROVISION OF CLINICAL SERVICES

Record Keeping

DOSH has released a Guideline on Occupational Health Services in 2005 (JKKP GP (BI) 04/2005). According to this guidelines, these OH services are provided by a team of OH Practitioners which are consist of:

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH DOCTOR (OHD)

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH NURSE (OHN)

INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST (IH)

HYGIENCE TECHNICIAN (HT)

ERGONOMIST

SAFETY AND HEALTH OFFCIER (SHO)

According to OSHA 1994, only OHD can carry out medical surveillance examination.On the other hand, industrial clinic services which is mainly curative based service can be provided by any registered medical practitioner BUT ideally this medical practitioner must have training in occupational health.Providing industrial clinic service to the employees without providing periodic medical surveillance examinations for the workers according to statutory regulations in OSHA 1994 and FMA 1967, is not enough to comply with both law. Without OH services available to the employees, it is impossible to achieve HEALTHY WORKFORCE, PRODUCTIVE WORKFORCE.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

World cup final is at the corner. It is between ITALY and FRANCE. What is the relationship between world cup and occupational health?There are a lot of things we can learn from Football. The first lesson we should learn is how the well-known team like ITALY and FRANCE taking cares of their primary tool, the player. They invested million of dollars on each player including on their maintenance of fitness. Every teams show they really taking care of the fitness of thieir primary tool because only FIT primary tool can deliver a victory to the team. It is a good example of a win-win situation. Another lesson we can learn is a teamwork approach between management and the players. Inorder to succeed, this teamwork culture is a must either in football or any business. These are the two lessons we should learn from world cup or football game. With these two lesson we can begin our journey to have HEALTHY WORKFORCE, PRODUCTIVE WORKFORCE.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

On 1st July, 2006 I joined a training session on Ergonomics and Manual Handling which was facilitated by a well known Malaysian Ergonomist, Dr. Jalaluddin Dahalan of ErgoConsult Advisory. The training session took 4 hours and involved 45 participants from one of the multinational companies of SamaJaya Free Industrial Zone, Kuching.Dr. J stressed the important of Ergonomics in creating EFFICIENT and QUALITY productivity and protecting the SAFETY and HEALTH of the workers. The workers are the PRIMARY TOOL or HUMAN ASSET to any organisation.A day prior to the training, Dr J and me did a 2 and half hours Ergonomic Risk Assessment at the company plant. Ergonomics as one of the important component of Occupational Health is wildly important in maintaining HEALTHY WORKFORCE, PRODUCTIVE WORKFORCEI have added Dr. J website to my blog link.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

We are now living in the era of Information Technology. The world is moving from the era of hunting activity to agriculture to industrial and now into Information Technology and Knowledge. We are going toward the era of WISDOM. Stephen R. Covey the great contemporary management GURU, has explained in a very thorough and crystal clear about this transition in his latest book; The 8th Habit.So now, inorder to survive in the GLOBAL competition especially in business, we need k-worker or KNOWLEDGED-WORKER. k-WORKER is a worker who has state of the art knowledge of their job and task, up to date in their skill and competency. The era of who is strong in term of physical is over. Strong worker without knowledge will go no where.From Occupational health perspective, k-WORKER is a worker who is knowledgable in their job or task, has up to date skill and competency and also has atleast awareness in occupational safety and health(OSH). Awareness in OSH is wildly important if we want to transform our worker to HEALTHY and PRODUCTIVE WORKER. Without awareness (self) in OSH, we will not getting k-WORKER in OSH at all, the knowledge in OSH is depending on the level of awareness in OSH. Both this awareness must exist throughout the Management and the worker. This is the main ingredient of OSH Culture at workplace.The level of awareness in OSH amongst workers is worrying us. I have seen a lot of workers in my work as Occupational Health Doctor. In my assessment, a lot of them are not aware about their safety and health at workplace, their responsibility under OSHA 1994, their RIGHT under LABOUR LAW, their RIGHT to claim compensation under SOCSO etcetera. Why should this situation happened in this era of Information Technology? Something is going wrong or we are still lagging behind in Information Technology?I have seen a lot of workers who are not even know what is CSDS or MSDS. If they know, they never READ it. I have seen a lot of workers who carry heavy load - for instance 30 kg for 10 to 20 times per day in their job without knowing that it can cause musculoskeletal injury/disorder although they already have Low back pain during their consultation with me. If they know that is the cause of their backpain, they will reply in sad voice; 'WHAT TO DO, THIS IS OUR JOB". or they dont dare to bring the matter to their employer because they scare of being fired. They rather doing a harmful job than being jobless. This is the attitude of majority of the workers in the third world according to one report. It seems to me our workers are lacking of knowledge in OSH, lacking of AWARENESS of their RIGHT as a worker and merely submitting their fate to their employer. This is my observation in my opportunity as occupational health doctor, meeting them with their problems. I feel sad. I think we have a lot of job ahead to accomplish inorder to create a contagious state of awareness in OSH. This is our CAUSE; to CREATE MEANING so that the workplace will become a SAFE WORKPLACE, to empower worker to become HEALTHY AND PRODUCTIVE WORKER and to enhance PROFIT to the organization through SAFETY AND HEALTHY CULTURE at workplace. It is a very tough mission, there are a lot of tribulations ahead BUT with passion and courage, sooner or later we will succeed in our meaningful mission for the workers :HEALTHY WORKFORCE,PRODUCTIVE WORKFORCE

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Every biz organization, either multinational or small - medium business, their main GOAL is to get PROFIT every year, increase in the revenue.However, the PROFIT is only achievable if your business PRIMARY TOOL is in good HEALTH. Your Primary Tool will determine the the HEALTH of your business.So, what or to be exact WHO is the primary tool of your business? Primary tool is non other than your workforce, your employee or human capital or so called 'MODAL INSAN" in Malaysia lately.In business the three principle things that keep business going smoothly are:1. Primary Tool or HUMAN CAPITAL2. FINANCIAL CAPITAL3. PROPERTY CAPITAL.The wildly important thing of the three is your PRIMARY TOOL. Why? Because your primary tool will determine the status of your Financial Capital and the Safety of your Property capital.I heard somebody asking, HOW?If your primary tool is not in the optimum HEALTH or behaving or acting UNSAFELY, the Quality and Productivity of your business will deteriorate. It will cause CACHEXIA to your Financial capital. Your Primary tool can become CANCER to your business if you dont have proper MAINTENACE program for their HEALTH. They will become confused and disorientated, playing UNSAFE ACT and creating UNSAFE CONDITION, the two culprits of any INDUSTRIAL DISASTER. It is like TIMEBOMB, it will jeopardise your PROPERTY CAPITAL and it will cause INFARCT to your FINANCIAL CAPITAL.So before DISASTER start, with its POOR PROGNOSIS...... It is the time for your organisation to do WORKPLACE HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT and RISK CONTROL. It is a wise and good investment to MANAGE the RISK rather than the SYMPTOMS. Make sure your organisation provides HEALTH maintenance program to your PRIMARY TOOL because I believe, and you should believe:HEALTHY WORKFORCE IS PRODUCTIVE WORKFORCE.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

My name is Aini B.Hj.Murni. I was graduated in medicine from School of Medical Sciences, University of Science Malaysia in 1989. I pursued my postgraduate study in Occupational Health at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in 2003.My main cause of starting this blog is to help you to understand occupational health and safety so that we can create a meaning in our organisation - we want to make it more conducive so that we can perform our job more efficiently and increase our productivity and maintain our product or service quality without adverse effect on our health and safety.My mantra is:"HEALTHY WORKFORCE, PRODUCTIVE WORKFORCE"

Saturday, June 17, 2006

My Activities...........On Wednesday, 14th June, 2006, I gave health talk to SHELL TIMUR SDN BHD, Kuching as one of the activities of their Health, Safety & Environmental(HSE) week from 12 - 16th June, 2006. I was invited to give health talk on two topics :- 1. Stress Management 2. Basic Egonomics. I will post the pdf version of my slides and will give you the link to download it in my next posting.On 17th June, 2006 I attended a preview talk on NIOSH's new education program called Executive Diploma in Ocupational Safety and Health ( EDOSH ). The preview was given by NIOSH Bintulu Executive Manager, Ir. Daud Sulaiman at their new Office at Jalan Petanak, opposite the Petanak Central Market, Kuching, Sarawak.

Friday, June 16, 2006

Occupational Health is a branch of Preventive Medicine.According to ILO/WHO Committe on Occupational Health : Occupational Health is -Promotion and Maintenance of the physical,mental and social levels of staff in all work sectors: Prevention from illnesses and diseases due to workplace or process; Protection from risks at work: Placement of workers in environments and job tasks suitable to their physiological and psychological capabilites.I called this 4P approach: PROMOTION, PREVENTION,PROTETCTION AND PLACEMENT.

Inorder to achieve these functions, the following are the acitivities or what is normally called - OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH SERVICES:

The needs of occupational health activity is different from organisation to organisation due to the nature of its business activity. So inorder to have an effective occupational health program, it should be customised-tailored according to the needs of that organisation.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

This is the first blog written by me for CendekiaOHS - a startup blog with the main focus to help your organisation: Maintaining the Health of Your Business. With that main cause, I am providing news, opinion and advice on any occupational health and safety issues. My main objective is to make sure your organisation has Healthy Workforce hence Productive Workforce. That is my main mission.Hope this blog will help you understand more the important of health and safety issue at your workplace,so stay tune.